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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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ADDRESS 



OF THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 



AT THE 



CELEBRATION OF THE SEMICENTENNIAL 

OF THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY OF 

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA 



OCTOBER 26, 1921 



2-1-2- 




WASHINGTON 

1921 




3 34 

•IB (o u 4> 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

IJVtQ 

novmimi 

OOOUMENT* wi.wlilON 



ADDRESS AT BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 26, 1921. 



Mr. Mayor, Citizens of Birmingham, and People of the South : 
I have been wondering, as we have seen the Birmingham district and 
the marvels of this region's industrial development, whether any of 
us have yet quite realized the significance of the fact that Birming- 
ham has been called "The Magic City." The basic, characteristic 
industry on which modern civilization rests is iron and steel; and 
Birmingham is the world's last word in development of the iron and 
steel industries. 

We have come here to pay tribute to the marvelous achievement of 
a brief half century to which this city and its industries stand as a 
monument. They testify to us how far the South has progressed in 
a single generation: the generation since slavery was abolished and 
the rule of free labor and unfettered industrial opportunity be- 
came the rule of all of our great Republic. 

Somewhere my attention has been called to the legend, possibly a 
historical fact, that when Fernando De Soto was leading his expedi- 
tion of exploration and conquest from Florida to the Mississippi, 
some of his metal workers not only discovered the wonderful deposits 
of coal, limestone, and iron ore in this area and told De Soto that here 
was an even greater treasure house than that which he was seeking; 
not an El Dorado of precious metals^, but the opportunity for making 
the world's dominating iron industry. I have been told, I do not 
know whether it is literally true, that the first reduction of iron in 
this district was actually accomplished by members of the De Soto 
party who supplied certain of the expedition's needs by smelting 
some of these wonderful ores. But De Soto was led on b} T the mirage 
which filled his vision, and instead of the pot of gold he sought, he 
found the miglnVy Mississippi, and in it his grave. 

So far as concerns more modern development, it appears that Gen- 
eral Andrew Jackson also utilized your mineral and metal riches. 
When he was on his march to New Orleans for the great battle in 
which the yeomanry of the South won the single notable land victory 
of the War of 1812, his metallurgists discovered that from these easily 
smelted ores they could supply their requirements of iron, of which 
they stood in great need. Accordingly, they erected rude furnaces 
and reduced considerable quantities of iron. From that time on there 

72964—21 (3) 



appears to have been more or less .sporadic and intermittent utiliza- 
tion of these d( and during the Civil War they provided a 
iderable part of the needs of the South. 
In this connection I have many times wished that there might 
be a wider appreciation of the en,ei . ami genius 
for industrial developmient whlen the people of the South demon- 
strated during that war. Essentially an aristocratic agricultural 
region, the South suddenly confronted the need to turn out iron and 
!. and a vast complexity of their products which were absolutely 
ntial to the conduct of the War. Not only did they arise to the 
occasion, but they gave what 1 have regarded as one of the greatest 
demonstrations in all history of the possibilities of adaptation, or- 
<>n. and industrial development under stress of great neces- 
sity. We will do well to recognize that the industrial achievement 
of the South during the Civil War was one of the marvels resulting 
from that unhappy conflict It marked the beginning of that diversi- 
fication of industry which has made the South of to-day an indus- 
trial as well as an agricultural empire; I have often wished that 
some inspired son of the South might one day devote the time and 
etl.,1! necessary t<» record the history of that Aladdin-like industrial 
wonder which was a large part of the story of the S«.uth in the civil 
contest. It is one of the phases of American history that has had too 
little understanding attention. When we have studied the Civil War 
we have beefi so engrossed with military and political aspects that 
we have slighted the industrial and economic phases. 1 am going 
to venture, therefore, the suggestion that a comprehensive study of 
that afipeol of the war period would be of inestimahle value to the 
South and to the great story of our national progress. Not only 
would it constitute an eloquent testimony to the genius and devotion 
of our southern people, hut it would present a picture of opening 

Opportunity and widening horizon whose Contemplation would chal- 
lenge every remaining vestige ..f prejudice and sectional antagonism, 
It has bees l truism that the War between the States started the 
Nation :is a whole in its way of colossal industrial growth. But I 
have wished that the particular story of that war-lame experience in 
the South might he hetter known. I have been told of tin- almost 
overnight development of Munition factories out of smithies; of the 
expansion of railroad repair shops int.. locomotive works; how ship- 
yards, ordnance plants, powder factories were conjured up and put 
:it work almost in the twinkling of :m eye: of improvised industrial 
processes and mechanical contrivances, not a few of which have been 

of permanent value, some of them fairly revolutionary. We will. 
I am BUre, he forgiven if. as Americans, we remind ourselves that 
wooden navies hail fought each other for thousands of years until 
Americans fell to lighting among themselves. Then came iron 



fighting craft — came so quickly and unanimously that both sides had 
their first armored warships read} 7 at the same moment, so well 
matched that they fought to a draw. It was a revolution ; yet it was 
only one incident in this matching of American genius and resource- 
fulness in titantic struggle. 

The railway and the telegraph were first bidden to the service of 
war on a great scale during our civil contest. The huge ordnance 
which both North and South created and used was as sensational in 
that day as the most startling constructions of the World War were 
more than a generation later. In both South and North our people 
learned and demonstrated what it means to mobilize all the human, 
industrial, financial, scientific resources of a great community for the 
purposes of war. That, indeed, was the most characteristic and most 
revolutionary development of the struggle. When we had done with 
our war we had well-nigh made over the whole art of war. The old 
things were gone forever. By land or by sea both its material and 
its methods were sweepingly changed. Glory and glamour had been 
taken out of it and in their place had been put the grim, hard reality 
of whole peoples measuring against each other their last ounce of 
power and resources. 

In that contest of industry and resources the South started with a 
fearful handicap; a handicap so great that its accomplishments con- 
stituted one of the industrial wonders of all time. It is to this wonder 
that I have wanted to call attention to-day, for I have felt that it has 
never been appraised as it ought to be. From that contest the South 
emerged, not only with the foundation of industrial greatness securely 
laid but freed from the incubus of a labor system that had from 
colonial times chained it to the status of an almost purely agricul- 
tural community. 

The industrial and commercial development of States and peoples 
has alwaj 7 s been strikingly influenced by their wars; perhaps even 
more than their social and political development. That older war 
founded industry in the South under stress of sternest necessity; 
and so we may recognize in j^our Birmingham district and its indus- 
trial splendor one of the fine products of the industrial revolution 
which was forced upon the whole South. 

We are gathered to-day to celebrate the semicentenary of the found- 
ing of Birmingham. That this wonder could be wrought in so brief 
a time tells us how fast our modern world moves; so fast that we are 
wont to forget our yesterdays before our to-days are fairly begun; 
so absorbing in its concerns of the present that too often we have 
neither time nor interest for the morrow. Yet there never was a 
time when we needed so much to study our past and, in the light of its 
]<>>-< >n<. give earnest thought to the to-morrows. So I have thought 
that here in your Aiagic City, whose story seems a very compress of 



yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, it may be proper to suggest a few 
thoughts regarding the critical times which are faced by our country 
and all countries and some of the issues which command our con- 
sideration. 

Exhausted an.) affrighted by the horrors of the World War. the 
cations are seeking means t<> prevent repetition of such an experi- 
ence. They see the need for effective reform in international rela- 
tionship- and. along with this, for many alterations and adaptations 
of domestic institutions which will Letter tit them for the new time. 
Our own country, though its necessities are less onerous, its diffi- 
culties not bo grievous a-- those of many others, lias yet occasion to 
consider wherein it may better its methods, adjust itself to the new 
relationship.-, and equip itself for the new sort of struggle that lies 
ahead. Concerning one phase of this national problem, T want to 

sa\ a few word-. 

If the Civil War marked the beginnings of industrialism in a 
South which had previously been almost entirely agricultural, the 
World War brought us to full recognition that the race problem is 
national rather than merely BectionaL There are no authentic sta- 
tistics, hut it i- common knowledge that the World War was marked 
by a great migration of colored people to the North and West. They 
were attracted by the demand for labor and the higher wages 
offered. The slow movement had been in progress for decades be- 
fore, but it was vastly accelerated 1 ause of the war. and has con- 
tinued at only a slackened pace since. It has brought the question 
of iace closer to North and West, and I believe it has served to 
modify somewhat the news of those sections on this question. It 
has made the South realize its industrial dependence on the labor 
of the black man and made the North realize the difficulties of the 
community in which two greatly differing races are brought to live 
side by side. I should say that it has been responsible for a larger 
charity <>n both sides, a beginning of better understanding; and in 
the light of that better understanding perhaps we shall be able to 
consider this problem together as a problem of all sections and of 
both races, in whose solution the best intelligence of both must be 
enlisted. 

Indeed, wc will be wise to recognize it as wider yet. Whoever 
will take the time to read and ponder Mr. Lothrop Stoddard's book on 
The Rising Tide of Color, or. say. the thoughtful review of some 
recent literature of this question which Mr. F. D. Lugard presented 
in a recent Bdinburg Review, must realize that our race problem 
here in the Tinted Slates is only a phase of a race issue that the 
whole world confronts. Surely we shall gain nothing by blinking 
the fact-, by refusing to give thought to them. That is not the 
American way of approaching such i-^ues. 



In another way the World War modified the elements of this 
problem. Thousands of black men, serving their qountry just as 
patriotically as did the white men, were transported overseas and 
experienced the life of countries where their color aroused less of 
antagonism than it does here. Many of them aspire to go to Europe 
to live. 

A high-grade colored soldier told me that the Avar brought his race 
the first real conception of citizenship — the first full realization that 
the flag was their flag, to fight for, to be protected by them, and 
also to protect them. He was sure that the opportunity to learn 
what patriotism meant was a real opportunity to his race. 

These things lead one to hope that we shall find an adjustment of 
relations between the two races, in which both can enjoy full citizen- 
ship, the full measure of usefulness to the country and of opportu- 
nity for themselves, and in which recognition and reward shall at 
last be distributed in proportion to individual deserts, regardless 
of race or color. Mr. Lugard, in his recent essay, after surveying 
the world's problem of races, concludes thus : 

" Here then is the true conception of the interrelation of color — 
complete uniformity in ideals, absolute equality in the paths of knowl- 
edge and culture, equal opportunity for those who strive, equal 
admiration for those who achieve; in matters social and racial a 
separate path, each pursuing his own inherited traditions, preserv- 
ing his own race purity and race pride ; equality in things spiritual ; 
agreed divergence in the physical and material." 

Here, it has seemed to me, is suggestion of the true way out. Politi- 
cally and economically there need be no occasion for great and 
permanent differentiation, for limitations of the individual's oppor- 
tunity, provided that on both sides there shall be recognition of the 
absolute divergence in things social and racial. When I suggest the 
possibility of economic equality between the races, I mean it in pre- 
cisely the same way and to the same extent that I would mean it if 
I spoke of equality of economic opportunity as between members of 
the same race. In each case I would mean equality proportioned 
to the honest capacities and deserts of the individual. 

Men of both races may well stand uncompromisingly against every 
suggestion of social equality. Indeed, it would be helpful to have 
that word " equality " eliminated from this consideration ; to have it 
accepted on both sides that this is not a question of social equality, 
but a question of recognizing a fundamental, eternal, and inescapable 
difference. We shall have made real progress when we develop an 
attitude in the public and community thought of both races which 
recognizes this difference. 

Colonizing countries everywhere have in recent times been more 
and more dealing with the problem from this point of view. The 



8 

British commonwealth of nations and races confronts it, and has 
been seeking its solution along the lines here suggested. There is 
possibility of our learning something applicable to our own country 
from the British. It is true that there is a great difference between 
bringing into bur own land the colonists of another race and going 
out to another land and subjecting it and its people to the rule of 
an alien race. Yet the two cases have so many elements of similarity 
that it seems to me the experience of each must furnish some light 
upon the other. 

Take first the political aspect. T would say let the black man vote 
when he is fit to vote: prohibit the white man fOting when he i- 
unfit to vote. Especially WOuld I appeal to the se] i'-rcspeet of the 
colored race. 1 would inculcate in it the wish to improve itself : 
distinct nice, with a heredity, a ^et of traditions, an array of aspira- 
tions all its own. Out of such racial ambition- and pride will come 
natural segregations, without narrowing any rights, Mich, as are pro- 
ceeding in both rural and urban communities now in Southern States, 
satisfying natural inclinations and adding notably to happiness and 
contentment. 

On the other hand I would insist upon e<|tial educational oppor- 
tunitv for both. This does not mean that both would become equally 
educated within a generation <>r two generations or ten generations. 
Even men of the sum' race do not accomplish such an equality as 
that. They never will. The Providence that endowed men with 
widely unequal capacities and capabilities and energies did not intend 
any such thing-. 

But there must be such education among the colored people as will 
enable them to develop their own leaders, capable of understanding 
and sympathi/im: with such a differentiation between the races a£ 
1 have suggested — Leaders who will inspire tic rtMie with proper 
ideals of race pride, of hat ional pride, of an honorable d< -t inv. an im- 
portant participation in the universal effort for ad\ an.vment of hu- 
manity as a whole. Racial amalgamation there can not be. Partner- 
ship of the races in developing the highest aims of all humanity there 
must be if humanity, not Only hen- but everywhere. is to achieve the 
ends which we ha\ e -ct for it. 

I can say to you people of the South, both white and black, that 
the time has parsed when you are entitled to assume that this problem 

of races is peculiarly and particularly your problem. More And 

more it is becoming a problein of the North: more and more it is 
the problem of Africa, Of South America, of the PacifiCj of the 

South SeaS, of the world. It is the problem Of democracy every- 
where, if we mean the thing- we say about democracy as the ideal 
political state. 



9 

Coming as Americans do from many origins of race, tradition. 
language, color, institutions, heredity; engaged as we are in the 
huge effort to work an honorable national destiny from so many 
different elements; the one tiling we must sedulously avoid is the 
development of group and class organizations in this country. 
There has been time when we heard too much about the labor vote, 
the business vote, the Irish vote, the Scandinavian vote, the Italian 
vote, and so on. But the demagogues who would array class against 
class and group against group have fortunately found little to 
reward their efforts. That is because, despite the demagogues, the 
idea of our oneness as Americans has risen superior to every ap- 
peal to mere class and group. And so I would wish it might be 
in this matter of our national problem of races. I would accent 
that a black man can not be a white man, and that he does not need 
and should not aspire to be as much like a white man as possible 
in order to accomplish the best that is possible for him. He should 
seek to be. and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black 
man, and not the best possible imitation of a white man. 

It is a matter of the keenest national concern that the South shall 
not be encouraged to make its colored population a vast reservoir of 
ignorance, to be drained away by the processes of migration into all 
other sections. That is what has been going on in recent years at a 
rate so accentuated that it has caused this question of races to be, as 
I have already said, no longer one of a particular section. Just as I 
do not wish the South to be politically entirely of one party; just as 
I believe that is bad for the South,- and for the rest of the country as 
well, so I do not want the colored people to be entirely of one party. 
I wish that both the tradition of a solidly Democratic South and the 
tradition of a solidly Eepublican black race might be broken up. 
Neither political sectionalism nor any system of rigid groupings of 
the people will in the long run prosper our country. I want to see 
the time come when black men will regard themselves as full partici- 
pants in the benefits and duties of American citizenship ; when they 
will vote for Democratic candidates, if they prefer the Democratic 
policy on tariff or taxation, or foreign relations, or what-not; and 
when they will vote the Republican ticket only for like reasons. We 
can not go on, as we have gone for more than a half century, with one 
great section of our population, numbering as many people as the 
entire population of some significant countries of Europe, set off from 
real contribution to solving our national issues, because of a division 
on race lines. 

With such convictions one must urge the people of the South to 
take advantage of their superior understanding of this problem and 



10 

to assume an attitude toward it that will deserve the confidence of 
the colored people. Likewise, I plead with my own political party 
to lay aside every program that looks to lining up the black man as 
a mere political adjunct. Let there be an end of prejudice and of 
demagogy in this line. Let the South understand the menace which 
lies in forcing upon the black race an attitude of political solidarity. 
The greater hope, the dissipation of hatred, the discouragement of 
dangerous passions lie in persuading the black people to forget old 
prejudices and to have them believe that, under the rule of whatever 
political party, they would be treated just as other people are treated, 
guaranteed all the rights that people of other colors enjoy, and 
made, in short, to regard themselves as citizens of a country and not 
of a particular race. 

Every consideration, it seems to me, brings us back at last to the 
question of education. When I speak of education as a part of this 
race question. I do not want the States or the Nation to attempt to 
educate people, whether white or black, into something they are not 
fitted to be. I have no sympathy with the half-baked altruism that 
would overstock us with doctors and lawyers, of whatever color, and 
leave us in need of people fit and willing to do the manual work of 
a workaday world. But I would like to see an education that would 
fit every man not only to do his particular work as well as possible 
but to rise to a higher plane if he would deserve it. For that sort 
of education I have no fears, whether it be given to a black man or a 
white man. From that sort of education. I believe, black men. white 
men, the whole Nation, would draw immeasurable benefit. 

It is probable that as a nation we have come to the end of the 
period of very rapid increase in our population. Recent legislation 
to restrict immigration will lie in pari responsible for a slacking 
ratio of increase. The new immigrants have multiplied in numbers 
much the more rapidly, but as the immigrants become Americanized, 
amalgamated into the citizenry, the tendency has been toward less 
rapid multiplication. So restricted immigration will reduce the 
rate of increase, and force us back upon our older population to 
find people to do the simpler, physically harder, manual tasks. This 
will require some difficult readjustments. It has been easy, indeed. 
but it has not been good for the people of our older stock, that a 
constant inflow in immigration made it possible to crowd off these 
less attractive and profitable tasks upon the newcomers. T don't 
think it has been good for what the old Latins called the national 
virtue. That is a word 1 have always liked, employed in the Roman 
sense. T wish we might have adopted it into our Vocabulary, in this 
sense. It strikes me as a good deal better than mdrdle. Anyhow. 



11 

we are under necessity to raise honest, hard, manual work to a new 
dignity if we are to get it done. We will have to make its compen- 
sations more generous, materially, and, if I may say it, spiritually; 
to make usefulness of service, rather than spotlessness of hands, the 
test of whatever social recognition depends on the individual's occu- 
pation. I confess a large disgust with all such classifications, and I 
earnestly bespeak an attitude toward good, honorable, hard work 
that will end them. I do not want to coddle and patronize labor ; I 
want us all to get out, put on blue denims, roll up our sleeves, let 
our hands be honorably soiled, and do the work. That's what we've 
got to do, if we are to get on. We must do it, and be glad we can ; 
for there is small chance that we will ever again have such armies of 
laborers landing on these shores, as have come in the past. 

In anticipation of such a condition the South may well recognize 
that North and West are likely to continue their drafts upon its 
colored population, and that if the South wishes to keep its fields 
producing and its industry still expanding it will have to compete 
for the services of the colored man. If it will realize its need for 
him and deal quite fairly with him, the South will be able to keep 
him in such numbers as your activities make desirable. At any rate, 
here is a problem and it is pressing for settlement. 

Is it not possible, then, that in the long era of readjustment upon 
which we are entering for the Nation to lay aside old prejudices 
and old antagonisms and in the broad, clear light of nationalism 
enter upon a constructive policy in dealing with these intricate issues? 
Just as we shall prove ourselves capable of doing this Ave shall insure 
the industrial progress, the agricultural security, the social and 
political safety of our whole country regardless of race or sections 
and along the line of ideals superior to every consideration of groups 
or class, of race or color or section or prejudice. 

Here are the reflexes of magical industrial development, here are 
the fruits in the making of a nation and its commitment to free 
productivity and trade. There is a materialism which sometimes 
seems sordid, but on the material foundation we have expanded in 
soul, and we have seen this Republic the example to freedom aspir- 
ing throughout the world. We wish to cling to all that is good. We 
want to preserve the inheritance over which we fought because our 
conflict made it more precious. But we wish to go on as well as 
preserve. 

The march of a great people is not a blind one. We can not be 
unmindful of human advancement. We wish to be more than 
apace with progress — we wish our America leading and choosing 
safe paths. Fifty years is a narrow span. Yet the marvel of 



12 



Birmingham is less than the marV< stounding Angelica. 

And avc mean to go on. If we are just and honest in administering 
justice, H we are alive to perils and meet them in conscience and 
courage, the achievement of your first half century will be magnified 
tenfold in the second half, and the glory of your city and your* 
country will be reflected in the hap] _ :—it people, greater 

than we dream, and grander for understanding and the courage to 
be right. 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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